Learning Loyalty
by k4writer02
Summary: The night of the last party of high school, musings on Rachel, Brooke, loyalty and friendship.


Title: Learning Loyalty

Author: k4writer02

Yuletide Recipient: shopfront

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: If I owned One Tree Hill, would I be writing it for free and fun?

Summary: The night of the last party of high school, musings on Rachel, Brooke, loyalty and friendship.

Rachel's had a hell of a year. Tree Hill, North Carolina was a place made for a girl like her--a cheerleader, with long silky hair, a body so firm it could have been molded out of plastic, a perfectly pretty face, too much money, no parents, an empty house, more freedom than she knew what to do with, a taste for sex, and a penchant for meddling in the affairs of others.

Or maybe it was a place made by girls like her, girls who carried the memories and marks of high school Glory Days like trophies, like burdens they can't shake, like skins they can't shed.

But that's the Rachel she shows the world. That Rachel is the life of every party she goes to, and she spends almost every night enlivening at least one party. She drinks and she dances (usually on tables) and she goes home with strangers. Anything, to be noticed, to be the center of attention, not to be ignored. Her hair is always colored, cut, and styled like the magazine covergirl she (wants to be) is. She makes up her face every day, covers the freckles and vulnerability with equal parts cosmetics and attitude. Wash either away and all you have left is a girl with clothes that only half cover her, and insecurities so deep a person could get lost in them. Rachel doesn't want to be lost, so she drinks, inhales, and tosses her shiny hair and smiles just so to invite, to entice.

That's most nights. It's been a busy time. Flirting with Lucas. Completing a coup of the cheerleading squad. Modeling. Seducing Coop into accidental statutory rape. Using the oldest trick in the book to hold onto him (at least for a few more days). Sending the car off the bridge. Crushing on that married man (and future daddy) who saved her life. Acquiring a roommate. Matchmaking the English teacher with her new roomie. Fake failing math. Test stealing. A stint as a naughty Clean Teen. Expulsion. Prom crashing, good-boy corrupting. Graduating (thank you, thank you god, after all, she doesn't have to do another year of high school in some backwater or take her GED). And now, back here, for one last party.

But the last high school party has been partied and promises have been made to reconvene in four years (all desperately sincere, of course, but Rachel doesn't see herself coming back here). That's what she tells herself, because really, she'd go wherever her one true friend is. In between the parties.

When Rachel needs some decency, some normality, where Brooke is, you'll find Rachel. Brooke is her better mirror, the party girl and cheerleader and rich bitch who somehow loves from the bottom of her soul. Oh, she looks just as shallow as Rachel, if you skim along the surface--the clear complexion and shiny hair and perfectly fitted clothing. But press more than skin deep on Brooke, and you find love, you find loyalty, you find untapped reservoirs of friendship.

Brooke's relationships to her female friends are more passionate and lasting than her affairs with men. Peyton is inscribed in her soul; an extension of herself. And Brooke will fight to the death for Haley and Rachel. Her men are, for the most part, transient and forgettable. Nathan? The videotape is the only reason she remembers it happened. Felix? She hasn't thought of him since he turned his back on Tree Hill. Chris Keller? Did she even blink when he joined the prom crashing? Chase? He's fun to play with, but he won't last. Lucas lasted longest, but she's let go of him now.

She does not let go of her girls--not ever. Whether she's Peyton's enemy or her best friend, there's no one person in her life who knows her better. And Haley? Brooke let the entire school believe that she was pregnant because it helped little Tutor Wife. She skipped out on a basketball game and cheering to get Haley to the hospital because she was in pain.

And Rachel--now Rachel knows she has won Brooke's loyalty. It is beyond price. There was so much rivalry between them at first--maybe there had to be. Somehow, it's turned into the most important relationship in Rachel's life.

That is what Rachel does not think anyone would see, if they peeled through the cosmetics, delved past the skin to find her center, the beating heart that makes her tick. Rachel has always lived for Rachel, that she might never be alone in her own skin. Her skin is thicker than Brooke's--harder to bruise, harder to break. But it's not invulnerable.

Brooke has crawled underneath Rachel's skin, and so Rachel wants to cling to her, wants to beg "Make me better. Make me like you. I don't want to be good; I don't want to be boring, but I need to be better. I need to be like you."

So even though Brooke's grades are pitiful and her personal life isn't much better (well, who is Rachel to criticize?), she is the best friend Rachel has ever had.

In her own faltering way, she's trying to be as loyal to Brooke as she sees Brooke being loyal to her friends. That's why she stole the test, and then took the fall. She thinks it's what Brooke would have done. Rachel didn't want to be selfish anymore; Brooke's needs suddenly mattered more. But Brooke one-upped her in the generosity department--Rachel has a piece of paper from Tree Hill High with her name on it to prove it.

They're not living together anymore. Rachel doesn't even know if she is Brooke's best friend anymore, since Brooke did what Rachel asked and made up with Peyton. Brooke is going to L.A. with her old best friend, so tonight is it. Rachel is in town for three days, on her way down the coast to a photo shoot. She has rented a hotel room; perhaps she'll sleep there tonight, perhaps she won't.

But if she and Brooke were in the same house, the same room, twin beds lined up like sisters in a sitcom, Rachel imagines that tomorrow night, instead of going to a party, that maybe she wouldn't have to dress up or put on that Rachel face she shows the world. Maybe she would take a long bath, and she wouldn't blow out her hair, would just leave it wet on her back, would wrap up in a terrycloth robe and lay on the couch in front of the TV. Because she does not feel like partying. She wants to put Clueless on TV and eat raw brownies and she wants to do it with Brooke.

In her fantasy, she lazes on a couch and she never once worries about how she looks. And Brooke is perfect without trying--she does not do her hair or face and she wears the most comfortable outfit she owns and the girls talk and talk and maybe they say important things and maybe they say silly things, but they talk and are together and the night never ends.

She's menstrual right now, which is part of it (an ugly fact she usually ignores). She gets Depo shots (reliable, no mistakes, no Lucas or Jamie in her future), so she only has four periods a year. So she practically forgets what it's like, until it happens. She doesn't bloat--nothing so unsightly for Miss Rachel Gattina. She cramps though, feels the pain of it in her back and stomach, so deep it makes her dizzy, makes her dream about chocolate and laziness. She'll be done bleeding by the time she leaves Tree Hill, and isn't that a metaphor? One more thing that happened here and didn't matter.

She could tease Mouth tonight, if she wanted (maybe even go all the way with him--teach him what Shelley was probably too shy to ask for). But instead she saunters to Brooke and Chase, who are kissing again. She wraps long arms around Brooke from behind, presses her cheek against Brooke's and asks, "Whatcha doing tomorrow?"

Brooke lets go of Chase, and presses back against Rachel. She's beaming as she presses her hands against Rachel's over her collarbone. "Flying to Cali." She sighs, "Peyton's got this music thing."

She pulls her arms away; Brooke turns to face her. "And Clothes over Bros...?" Rachel asks. Dear God, she sacrificed for that; if it fell through, she doesn't know what she'd do.

"Starts there." Brooke looks cheerful and wistful and it tugs on Rachel's heart. "What about you, girlfriend?"

"Photo shoot." She smirks, shows her best side. "South beach!"

"After that?" Brooke prompts.

Rachel shrugs. Another shoot, maybe, or maybe she'll follow the party circuit for a while. There's always space for a pretty girl with money at a party.

"Come stay with us." Brooke invites. "L.A. will fall at our feet. We're the trifecta."

"Brunette, Blond, Redhead?" Chase interjects.

They'd forgotten he was there, and glare at the intrusion. He retreats, chastened and confused.

"We'll be like Charlie's Angels." Brooke beguiles, "Except instead of crime, we fight boredom."

Rachel arches an expressive brow. "Through sex, gossip, and drinking?"

Brooke rolls her eyes, and explains, "Music, fashion, and modeling!"

Rachel plays coy, "I'll think about it."

But they both know she will go.

Their goodbyes don't feel like goodbye. So as Rachel sleeps alone in her hotel room, surrounded by Godiva wrappers, she smiles in her sleep. She's kept her best friend after all.


End file.
